Correction
by Resmiranda
Summary: [SessRin] Reset, record, rewind. You can always get it right next time. [Dark] [one-shot]


**Title:** Correction  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Pairings:** Sesshoumaru/Rin  
**Words:** 775  
**Summary:** Reset, record, rewind. You can always get it right next time.  
**Author's Notes:** Originally written for the 30shards community on LJ. I really do love Rin, by the way - I don't know why I keep doing this sort of thing to her. All I can say is that Sesshoumaru can be a really, really creepy guy.

**Correction**

Even heaven cannot fight time. 

Sesshoumaru learns this when Heaven's blade cannot bring her back, so when she is over, she is _over_. And that, it would seem, is that. 

He sees that she has a proper burial before he wanders away, wondering what to do now. A little bloodshed, a little fighting, maybe. Something soothing. 

It takes him a while to understand that she took something of him with her. Little hands on his face, and then not-so-little hands on his body, and then wrinkled hands in his own - somewhere in there, those hands wrapped a ribbon of him around her, for her to hold for eternity. 

When he realizes this, the hole inside makes sense, and there is only one thing to do. 

He waits. 

. . .

She begins again. 

When she is seven - that perfect age when first he saw her - he takes her away to live with him again. 

Except something goes wrong. She does nothing but cry, sniffling and sobbing and asking for her mother. His Rin never cried, and he is still carved hollow. 

Frustrated, he realizes the truth: that this is not her. Even though her soul shines out from behind her eyes, this is Rin-who-is-not. Were he patient, he would let her go back to her parents and wait to try again the next time she begins. 

But, then again, he has never really been a patient man. 

And now she is over. 

He washes his claws in an icy creek - somehow, it wouldn't seem right to suck them clean - and, before he buries her next to herself, he licks the tears away from her face. 

He never could stand to see her cry. 

. . .

He waits. 

She begins again. 

This time she is five, and she bites and scratches, kicks and screams. His Rin would never fight him. 

This is not her. 

And now she is over. 

Her tears are salty. 

. . .

He waits. 

She begins again. 

This time she is ten, and she runs away. His Rin would never run from him. 

This is not her. 

And now she is over. 

Her tears are salty. 

. . .

He waits. 

She begins again. 

This time she is fourteen and she stays with him. She is obedient enough, though quiet and withdrawn, so he forces himself to wait a little longer. 

And then when he takes her the first time, he watches the feeble light fade from her eyes, and she turns her head away. She refuses to move, remains limp and still beneath him. Her cheeks shine. His Rin would never reject him. 

This is not her. 

And now she is over. 

He doesn't even withdraw from her before letting the salt of her weeping grace his tongue. 

He buries her next to herself and herself and herself and herself. 

. . .

And he waits. 

. . .

Even heaven cannot fight time. 

The centuries roll by. 

There are more and more humans every year, so it gets harder and harder to find her. Sometimes he doesn't find her until her late teens. It has been a long time since she has been older than that, and sometimes, almost wistfully, he wishes he had let her live just once. He really enjoyed her at thirty. 

Still, every time, without fail, he knows he cannot wait. 

This time she is sixteen, and he runs into her quite by accident in a forest. 

To his shock and sudden, painful elation, she recognizes him. 

"Sesshoumaru-sama," she whispers. She stands in the middle of the nature trail, rooted in place while her friends scramble away, clumsy beneath their backpacks and in their clunky hiking shoes. They are soon gone, so blinded by panic they do not notice that they have left her behind. 

He pays no attention to them. She is all that matters. 

"Rin," he says. 

Then she begins to shiver and his hollowed heart plummets. His Rin would never fear him. 

With a sigh, he raises his hand. 

"Wait!" she says. 

Even though he has waited long enough, he pauses and waits for her to speak. 

She is already crying. It takes a moment for her to find her voice. 

"How long?" she finally asks, voice trembling. "How long will you keep doing this?" 

He blinks, a thin thread of puzzlement slipping through him, and then it is gone. 

He raises a brow and cracks his claws. "Until you get it right," he tells her lightly. 

And she closes her eyes, her face shining and shadowed in the light of the spring morning. 

He really never _could_ stand to see her cry. 

Afterward, on her still-warm skin, her tears taste strangely sour. 

. . .

He waits.


End file.
